S.D. Mayor, Officials Lobbying for Bigger Share of Bond Money

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published February 20, 2007 at 7:46 AM PST

This story was published more than 17 years ago.

Mayor Jerry Sanders and a delegation from San Diego are in Sacramento today. They are lobbying for a bigger share of the money from a new state bond passed by voters last November. KPBS reporter Aliso

Mayor Jerry Sanders and a delegation from San Diego are in Sacramento today. They are lobbying for a bigger share of the money from a new state bond passed by voters last November. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

San Diego drivers have a stake in today's meeting of the California Transportation Commission. The Commission is considering how to divvy up the first batch of money from Proposition 1B -- a $20 billion transportation bond.

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Commission staff say San Diego should get just over $300 million - mostly to add express lanes on Interstate 15, and carpool lanes to Interstates-5 and 805. But San Diego had requested almost twice that much.

Mayor Sanders and a delegation of San Diego transportation officials hope to boost the region's share. However competition is fierce. Sixty percent of the bond money is supposed to be spent in Southern California, but more than half of the first installment of the freeway money is slated to go to northern parts of the state.

Alison St John, KPBS News.

Alison St John

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.